“We love Him because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19). Starting here, and continuing through 2 Cor. 3:18, Acts 17:28 and Col. 3:10; we see that we are not the “instigators” in our relationship with God. In all my fallen humanity, I don’t approach Him because of my own bright idea. It’s always a response to Him drawing me.
Having said that, I’ve found (and am still finding) that the best way to maintain a life of prayer is to fill my mind with truth about how God sees me and feels about me. I need to hear His words. To borrow from Meg’s post, when I consecrate myself to take in His words about how He sees me, I set myself up to encounter Him in the place of prayer.
For me, this all starts in Psalm 45:2…”Grace is poured upon Your lips.” The words that He speaks are dripping with grace, with love, with mercy…they’re words that my soul loves to hear. They don’t condemn me, they lift me up. I don’t know if it’s just me, but I usually prefer to hang out with people who, I’m pretty sure, I like me. And by the same token, if I know someone really doesn’t like me, I’m usually going to do everything in my power to avoid being alone with them. The same is true of my heart before God: if I feel shame or condemnation, or if I believe the lies that I’m not performing up to snuff, I avoid prayer. I don’t want to set my heart before someone (God, no less) if I’m sure they’re disappointed in me. But when my heart is convinced of the truth that He is in love with me, as much now as He has ever been and ever will be, prayer becomes a little more enjoyable. Just a little. So the more my heart hears those words from the One who is drenched with grace, the more I want to stick around in that place with Him (prayer).
So let’s consecrate ourselves unto encounter; let’s commit to getting the Word into our heads and our hearts, especially the passages that reveal His thoughts and feelings about us. Hear words of grace, love and kindness, and let the understanding of His thoughts and feelings about us sink in. Realize that He actually likes us and likes to be around us. That’s where prayer starts to become enjoyable, which is the best way I know to sustain prayer in a busy lifestyle.
Cool. Yesterday at a church Prayer Teams meeting (our small group of teams of 2 who fast & pray 1 day each week for people’s confidential requests), we usually discuss how things are going in terms of being consistent with our weekly prayer times & fasting, we share struggles, & remind each other that God’s grace is overflowing for us each & every time we err.
Someone had a really cool picture, or 2 pictures that went together: First, he saw God the way we think He looks at us – with binoculars, inspecting every little mistake or error we make. Then he saw God as He really is, just looking at us without binoculars. He sees us as we are but He’s not picking us apart error by error. He just looks upon us with love.